


Synthetic Maw Society

by saturnsage



Category: Fallen Hero Series - Malin Rydén
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, M/M, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-23
Updated: 2019-06-23
Packaged: 2019-11-28 11:06:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18207575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saturnsage/pseuds/saturnsage
Summary: No one has ever been part of his grief before.





	1. lying is a lot like stealing

**Author's Note:**

> Alrighty gucci gang. Here's what popping! This shit's gunna be like...really fucking weird ass one-shots/drabbles that explain why my sidestep is Like That. Backstories, metas, headcanons, theories, gross romances and literally everything that makes me froth at the mouth galore.
> 
> Not chronological, either but who cares about that! This is me, having fun, making a mess because I can and I want to!!
> 
> And if you like it. Awesome ur gay now. Hell yeah.
> 
> Also shit gets SQUICKY so watch out for the tags

6\. twisted story cycles that reek of thieves, those are his favorite, those are vindication. 

 

it’s so much more easy to pretend that all of this happened because there’s a story in need of telling. onion-skin pages of whatever bible that people die over. the creak of a scroll spine that makes a man think about things like souls and living past your own funeral. 

 

he’s dying over this: perpetual state of living decay. 

 

the stories that talk of thieves, those who stole away their own grisly or fatty deaths:andthose are his favorite indeed. 

 

(eye for an eye) 

  
he’s dying over something. this place made him forget what, exactly. 

 

eyelids too stapled to think clear. his tongue is sour on the roof of his mouth, and he falls into a pit coiling with clean bolts, perfect for keeping things tight and locked; starts to sink. even the grease efficiency of this place makes him boil, and he claws at his own sinking calves to keep himself upright. the sky’s too big for him to gain any purchase from above, and the pit’s as gaping as a sinkhole. the bolts and drills buzz high and sweet, right next to his double-triple skinned body. 

 

his hands reach down to pull away a drill and it punctures the middle of his palms. the second hand bleeds in companionship as well.

 

punishments for stealing: incarceration, branding, hanging, all capitol. all capitol. 

 

punishments for stealing: there’s that whistling sound that’s a shade lower than a dog whistle’s cry (ha ha ha) and now his mouth is filled with air-clay, freezing his voice in and leaving him defenseless. his legs useless for running, his hands useless for clawing, his voice useless for help. 

 

he’s dying because of something. in the stories, the thieves always die if they don’t have a silver tongue.  
  
silver tongue smart words an eye for an eye is the best way to go he loves a good story  
  
________  
  
5\. He’s tactful in making sure Ortega thinks that Jie-Sun will forgive himself for this.   
  
In time, maybe soon, maybe in the future, they’ll both start and stop tip-toeing amongst the still-warm couch they press against each other on, and one day there will be a word for what they are.   
  
Ricardo slides his way from counter-kitchen top to kitchen-floor and talks about things like visiting the ranch during wildfire season for a week or two, things so small and useless and _domestic_ it makes both their heads spin. He’s wearing sweatpants and socks, the grafts of his non-flesh body shown just as carelessly as the scars that stud his skin. the blue of the spine is almost sickly compared to the lighting in the kitchen, and Ricardo still breezes through it.  
  
It makes Jie-sun so impossibly jealous that he sits still on the kitchen bar-stool and counts the edges of the table twelve times over. 

 

‘How do you do it?” he whispers; cringes at the thickness of the words; hates the hoarseness of something being too rickety to use. (thrills in the wrongness of its existence. take that, bastards)

 

“Do what?” Ricardo asks, humming. He’s scribbling out last-minute memos concerning some gang or other on a loose leaf paper. The microwave synchronizes with the etches of the ballpoint pen in his hands, and with the zapping in his mind.   
  
Jie-Sun steels himself, coughs out the rest. “How do you not hate them? The…the mods.” 

 

The other man looks up, concern already starting to pool into his eyes. The pen stops. Ricardo stares a little at Jie-Sun, and then shifts his eyes away to some nondescript wall.   
“Tell you what,” he says. “Stay the night, crash at my place instead of that dingy place you live in, and i’ll spill.”  
  
Jie-Sun can’t excavate the reasoning behind everything Ricardo says. They are both as unreadable to each other as they are transparent.   
  
Therefore, it’s the easiest and hardest part to make sure Ricardo doesn’t realize that Jie-Sun probably won’t forgive himself for this.   
  
He nods, and Ricardo beams. 

 

(and psyche stole into the night and gazed upon eros)  
  
_____  
  
1\. The first he ever hears ofhis own thoughts, he nearly broke the staff in half.   
  
Sparring. Hits and jabs.   
  
Then: ‘ _I like winning.’_ In a voice he didn’t recognize, and that was how he knew it was his own.   
  
He drops the staff and lets himself get gutted by Anathema’s elbow, makes sure to hit his head on the floorrough and hard.   


He can only read the minds of those he can connect to, for better or for ill.   
  
Connecting to his own body is outlandish in it’s renewal, and when Anathema picks him back up with an apology, he lets her think that the reason why his knees tremble is for the fall alone.   
  
(and the husband stole the rapunzel straight from the witch’s garden)  
____  
  
3\. Ortega stumbles out of his own office and drapes himself over Chen, wailing about the work, and Jie-Sun looks away from where his brown skin dips under the white fabric of his t-shirt, where the hair frizzes out of the hair gel, because Jie-Sun was never meant to see this. There’s nothing that gives the a-ok to stare at the collarbones of the guy who just yesterday chummed it up with some girl or another.  
  
Chen looks unimpressed in the clear facade, because Ortega only complains about work when he’s had a break-through and needs to buzz about it and whack a tennis racket at it from a different view. 

 

Jie-Sun catches himself watching the gestures Ricardo’s hands make and the slope of Ricardo’s jaw, and looks away, into his own beaten and battered hands. He touches his own chin with a finger and winces.   
  
Jie-Sun catches Ricardo watching the wince in the corner of his eye, and acts like he didn’t.   
  
Charades. Both of them play that game well. Ortega blubbers louder.  
  
(and the dragon stole the princess)  
____  
  
2\. He cracks the bathroom linoleum afterward and spits out the cyanide pill, the colorful casing unbroken with it’s contents inside. The pill skitters down the drain, and Jie-Sun nearly gasps. 

 

One less escape route.   
  
But it’s alright. He has his own mind, which can think up of things on it’s own.  
  
(jesus thats a terrifying thing to think jesus he’s doing it again)

 

____  
  
4\. Ricardo presses himself up against Jie-Sun’s back much like he did with Chen earlier this morning but it’s different because it’s a bit heavier, a bit headier, and Ricardo presses his hands on Jie-Sun’s hips. Tilts his head up just enough to reach.   
  
Thank God Jie-Sun has an excellent sense of balance, thank God that he didn’t act on his first two instinct, both of which involve some forms of violence.   
  
“You wanna come over for dinner?” He asks, right into Jie-Sun’s ear, knowing, most likely, the shivers that come Jie-Sun aren’t all cold. The smile is heard as well as seen. “I know for a fact you don’t eat anything until someone makes you.”  
  
Jie-Sun puts his hand on Ricardo’s waist, only because there’s no where else to put it.   
  
If someone were to walk in at this moment, Ortega would pull themselves away from each other, arms length at best. Smile bleached and bright. Nobody would ever find them like this, with Ricardo stuffing down his camera-readiness and instead leaning into Jie-Sun’s space, eyes shining and expression hopeful.   
  
Jie-Sun lets himself loose. Unclicks the lockdowns of his joints into something more easily cuttable, more easy to fit it. Loosens his mouth, uses an ice-pick to make it presentable.

 

When Ortega sheds his persona, he may as well be naked. Meanwhile, Jie-Sun clambers on tenderness like a soccer player putting on shin guards. Like a man building a bomb shelter. Last line of defense, front lines, armor modded armor.  
  
“…Sure.” He says, and it’s the first thing he’s said in a week, which is progress, a lot of progress. _‘I’m doing better.’_ He lets himself puff out a laugh. “..Why not.” The voice that comes out sounds exactly like the one in his thoughts.   
  
Ricardo visibly brightens at that, sheds one more layer off of his skin and suddenly it’s only Ortega in the flesh, nothing else, no camera flashes to help with the light pollution that clouds or Ricardo’s self. He brushes his hands up to Jie-Sun’s waist into a hug. Leans up just a tad bit further to kiss the corner of Jie-Sun’s mouth. Soft and smooth and hot against his face. Jie-Sun burns.   
  
(none of this would be happening if that door wasn’t closed)  
  
(‘ _Let me have at least this’_ )  
  
_  
“_ Perfect,” Ricardo purrs, and sticks himself off to grab the keys from his desk, start getting ready to leave. “Because really, you’re doing me a favor. I bought too much groceries since i’m an idiot-“  


“You are.” Jie-Sun interrupts, knowing that Ricardo loves it when he interrupts.   
  
“Yeah, asshole,” Ortega says, smiling, fumbling for papers he needs to do at his place. “I’m an idiot, I know. Anyways, I’m making food. You’re eating it with me.”   
  
Ricardo takes Jie-Sun’s hand right before they leave, and squeezes it. Then, he lets it drop, and there’s a safe distance between the two as the walk. 

 

(you know, stealing hearts is also a terrible offense)  
  
____  
  
7\. He wakes Jie-Sun up, and says nothing. His eyes almost burn in the dark.   
  
Jie-Sun’s on the floor, panting, shivering. He coughs, the snaps his mouth shut.   
  
Ricardo leans down, presses a hand to lift Jie-Sun up gently.   
  
“Nightmare?” He asks.   
  
_‘I’m getting better, I am. I swear I am_.’ Jie-Sun desperately wants to say.

  
But. 

 

(silver tongues no no no)  
  
So, he nods.   
  
He’ll let Ricardo think that they’re doing well together only because lying is a lot like stealing.  



	2. grimm-brother hot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ortega likes running on borrowed kisses just as much as jie-sun likes running on borrowed time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> preheartbreak! chargestep where ricardo goes all "hey can we talk for a second before the press gets here?" and then forgets about talking

he’s a gaunt, too-tall boy of twenty one, face like the fists he bruises and very, very much not soft. he’s rude and loud with his middle fingers, he fights like he’s got his brows iced, and he’s got his shoulders dislocated two inches wrong. he smells like hydrogen peroxide, like grimm-brother iron.  
  
it’s the vigilante in him, ricardo thinks. break the rules just enough to make yourself a riot, in a good, good way.   
  
ricardo isn’t a vigilante; snapped ruler-bent into military drills instead of saturday morning cartoons, and he’s got a twitching in his gut every time he does something vaguely illegal. maybe he could have been, if he wasn’t drowning in debt, if he wasn’t a too-good at watching and listening kind of guy.   
  
this reeks of something vaguely illegal, he thinks, weirdly enough. the hip rolls reek of something vaguely illegal, the way his hands slide up the waist to the torso, the way he kisses rough, with extra clacks and more contused noses. 

jie-sun hisses through the gaps between his teeth, probably because ricardo shoved his leg between solid thighs and jie-sun just got up from the rubble only what, two minutes ago, probably because ricardo’s mouth is open wide and searing hot against the fever-skin on jie-sun’s neck, probably this, probably that, ricardo isn’t the mind reader here, no. 

kiss of life, there, right there, maybe ten feet away from where the journalists clamber over police tape, where jie-sun’s craning his head down to ricardo’s shoulder to sigh in a octave higher than usual, where the brick wall feels rough against ricardo’s hitched up knee.   
  
“two minutes,” jie-sun whispers out, blissed and raw and nice nice nice.  
  
“one more?” ricardo manages to rasp into a part of jie-sun’s unmasked neck he hasn’t kissed, and rolls his hips against jie-sun’s again. the suits don’t leave much to the imagination, body-wise.   
  
“s’why im giving- _ah-_  you,  _two-hmf -,_ whole ass minutes,” then hands on his hair and and back of his neck tug to hard they nearly tear, then the words turn back into a gasp, then to a moan, and it’s so nice, so nice. “press. no mask on.  _shit.”_  
  
ricardo trails back up to jie-sun’s ear, thinks about what could be underneath those suits, peels jie-sun’s head off his shoulder to thonk it against the wall and kiss the already mussed and red mouth (there it is, there's that pill) further into something worse, forgets how to count one more.   
  
everyone’s gonna wonder where they are, but ortega can’t think of anything but the tug on his curls, the slickness of their mouths together, and what woulda happened if he let himself have this. 

“i know,” he croaks, right between shared breaths, “two minutes, just two minutes,” and thinks about how this feels vaguely illegal. 

it probably is. jie-sun likes vaguely illegal. good, good. 


	3. what do you do to hold someone down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what do you do to hold someone down long enough to leave a mark/ whats the way that makes them remember it

Jie-Sun looks at Ricardo like he’s oleaginous. The sickliness of it burns through Chen as a match-stick dies without air.   
  
Hands press against Ortega’s jugular, and nothing in his face gives anything away except for reverence in regret.

  
Jie-Sun’s already more exhausted than the dusk in a snow-less winter. The crying he does makes him look toppled, makes him look conquered three times over. It won’t take any strength to clasp his shoulder and rip him off from Ricardo’s body to keep him from wounding the latter’s throat.   
  
It won’t take even a drop of watered-down iron to push him aside. Not even a goose bump to use the work hands against him. But he won’t get back up. He’ll close his eyes and sleep.  
  
Neither Ricardo nor Jie-Sun speak. Ricardo’s head thonks against the wall, and his shoulders are ragged from the turbulence of his mods, from the voltage of him and from the loss that still drowns his words. 

 

Then, Ricardo takes both the hands and peels them away from his throat. There’s no red. There was no pressure.  
  
The warnings in Chen’s system die down, if only a little. Suddenly, the reasoning behind Ricardo ordering Chen to stay away made sense. You don’t call for back-up concerning an empty threat.  
  
“I already knew, a little.” He says. Turbulent.  
  
“You don’t know _shit_ ,” Jie-Sun whispers. It’s as grating as a paper-shredder, with how he forces against the knots of his mouth. “ _You don’t know fucking shit.”  
  
“_Jie _-_ Sun _.”  
  
_Ricardo reaches out to touch the tip of his bleeding jaw-line. There’s a plea there.  
  
As soon as his fingertips touch Jie-Sun’s jaw, he flinches so visibly that he stumbles back. The scars on his face are pale compared to the bruising. Ricardo stiffens as Jie-Sun almost loses his balance.  
  
The latter clutches onto the wall like a life-line.   
  
“ _Idiot.”_ He hisses, his mouth covered with his hands.  
  
That makes Ortega’s eyes flash, but he doesn’t step closer, and lets Jie-Sun run away, through the door, with shaking hands and hitched hiccups.   
  
Only when the door slams hard enough to shake the room, does Ortega slide down to sit on the floor.   


Chen is at a stand-still. He doesn’t know who to go to.   
  
“What…happened?” He asks, hesitant. He still eyes where the splatter of blood is where Jie-Sun was standing. The stupid, _stupid_ part of him screams at him to bandage up where-ever Park is hurting, hold his wrists gently and ask what the hell is wrong, how the hell he can fix it.  
  
The survivalist part of him sneers at him and tells him that this is why Park is here, to make Ortega look electronic in his grief.   
  
Ortega buries his face into his arms for 1, 2, 3,and then looks up at Chen with a heave. The fall of Rome ended with someone crawling through the aqueducts. Jie-Sun writhed himself into Ortega’s veins.  
  
“Why he can’t walk,” Ortega explains. He tucks his head on his knees and stares out, like he’s twenty-six again. “I figured it out.”  
  
Chen sighs, and walks over to sit himself next to Ortega, just like when they were both younger.   
  
“I take it that he didn’t like that.”  
  
Ortega hums. He’s a million miles away, seven years back.   
  
“No.”  
  
“Should I know why?”   
  
The younger man turns untouchable, hardened into a crack of lightning hitting the ocean. He looks like he did when he saw Hood poring over papers that he’d pore over after, how he did when someone pressed a microphone up to his face, how he did when he realized the world was collapsable and that Los Diablos is only forgiving when he forces it to be.  
  
Rome turns to Pompeii, turns to Atlantis that drowned because of a thunder-storm.   
  
The words come out thick. “Whoever did it,” Ortega starts, “Knows a thing or two about making it hurt.”  
  
Chen frowns, and the edges where flesh meets steel start to make themselves known on his legs. “Modded?” He asks, because the two of them knows exactly what it’s like.   
  
It wouldn’t make sense. Neither of them have publicly shown how much they hate their mods. Jie-Sun wouldn’t have had any reason to get his head bashed in and have to slam Ricardo back against a wall in a panic.   
  
Ortega laughs. It’s as cold as Los Diablos. The cork board where all his ‘projects’ is where he stares at, from across the room. “God, I wish.” He says. “I would have known what to say.”   
  
Chen hums. “He left his cane on the floor.”  
  
“Knowing him, he’d rather drag himself on the floor.”


	4. what do you want me to do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Let the dead rest/ let the dead swallow every single iron in your blood cells/ let the dead make a mess/ let the dead make you regret this/ let the dead die.

He’s poisoned and half-feral, like all ghosts tend to get when they go too long without asking for something. The antiseptic edges of his frame, the way he walks without a footprint despite being loud with his guns, how Ortega still looks like he’s haunted.  
  
It takes Chen so much not to ask him “ _What do you want from me?_ ” And let him rest in his grave. Too much. Not enough. He’s brilliant in keeping things to himself. He’s brilliant in keeping small things for himself.  
  
They’re tangled in each other’s hold and the dawn has greyed out any sort of color in the room. Chen rests his head on Park’s, feels the itch of unbrushed hair under his chin and doesn’t care.   
  
They’ve been awake since midnight, when both of them realized there’s no reason to talk or argue or even notice the world outside of this apartment, when they realized it could just be the two of them, for now.  
  
Park’s busy half-drifting off. Part of the reason he never stays still no matter how shot his limbs are is because as soon as he sits down, the gravity of the earth and everything that’s chased and is chasing him pulls him into sleep.  
  
He’s tired. Exhaustion is the thickness in the skin of ghosts.

 

He’s tapping out some nonsensical morse words out on Chen’s flesh arm. Each tap of the index finger feels like a bullet with a silencer. Chen can take a punch, but he never let himself get hit before.  
  
Perhaps it’s like an apology, letting the morse hit his skin.

 

Chen kisses the back of Park’s shoulder, clothed and layered as it is. Lets his eyes flutter down and breathe enough to make the other man shiver.

  
_What the hell do you want from me?_   


_Let the dead rest/ let the dead swallow every single iron in your blood cells/ let the dead make a mess/ let the dead make you regret this/ let the dead die._

 

“Park,” he mumbles into the shoulder, and Jie-Sun rustles in response, eyes drooping. “What do you want me to do?”

 

It’s not enough of a question to keep Jie-Sun awake. He shrugs, barely. Lifts the shoulder Chen isn’t resting his head on.

 

_Pay the dead respect then throw sage around the house and burn it. Let the dead go, let the dead go._

 

Wei watches Jie-Sun doze off, mouth loose. They both are only loose when they think it’s easier to be.  
  
It’s so much easier to be when Chen waits for the morning smog to tell Park to leave.   
  
They hold each other gingerly.

 

2.

Ortega holds himself gingerly because it’s much easier on his aches and pains than to lock up his muscles.

 

Out of his nose comes a trickle of blood, and his nostrils flare when he’s scrabbling to pick himself up. He looks like the end of a wrestling match, the boxing gloves, the referee, the boxing ring all at once.

 

Chen came just in time into the scene to see Ortega slump down groggily when No One lets him go and runs off. (the coward, the bastard, the liar, the liar) Chen swallows his panic when Ortega touches his neck and groans.

 

Ortega clutches his stomach, and the fritz bolts in his hair makes him look wild and close to blowing. He barely manages to hobble to his feet.

 

“How bad is it?” Chen asks, walking up to hold Ortega up by the shoulders.

 

“Twelve million.” Ortega replies, with an ugly _gugh, God_. “Nobody hurt. No hostages. They sounded the alarms after they got the money.”

 

Chen tsks, thinking about the paperwork, the press, the fact that Charge keeps losing and keeps earning more bruises.

 

Charge himself looks glassy-eyed and dazed. He’s far-off, untethered. It worries Steel so much he asks if he’s alright.

 

“Me? Fine. Made a rookie mistake. It’s fine.”

 

“It’s not fine. You’re hurt.”

 

Charge doesn’t respond to that, and keeps looking out to where No One ran off, faster than humanly possible to even consider to catch. If Steel is lucky, Argents already on her way to pick at him.

 

Steel turns Charge away from that direction and points him toward going back to HQ. His hands feel heavy on Charge’s waist.

 

“I was just thinking,” Charge says. Quiet. Unruly. Not good, not good, not good. “They never tell us why they’re doing this. Sure, they talks a lot, but the only time they ever mentioned why they’re doing this was-“

 

“No.” Chen interrupts. “We talked about this.”

 

Charge snorts, and then winces. “Yeah, talked.” He mutters. “Because that’s what it was. Talking.”

 

The way Charge is sluggish with his movements means he’s still not able to catch his breath. Steel doesn’t let there be anymore room for conversation, only holding him up and walking him out of sight’s eye.

 

It would have been a miracle if Ortega stayed quiet.   
  
Nothing about Ortega is miraculous, though.

 

Ortega prove’s Chen’s point further when he says: “You get it though, right? The...the reasoning. Earlier.”

 

Chen doesn’t respond.

 

Ortega looks to the ground and unlocks his fists to make them limp.

 

There’s no right answer to that question.   
  
It’s why Chen hates it. It makes him feel stony and sharp.   


 

3.  


( _No One slams Charge against the wall and comes close enough that if the helmet had a face it would leer. His knee is pressed right between Charge’s own, and Charge grunts when he shuts his eyes, clawing at the arms that’s holding him up. The arms tighten, and Charge takes in a raggedy breath._

 

_“Jie,” He coughs out, and it’s in a wanting tone, one a bit too soft to consider being anything but something from Charge’s own thoughts._

 

_No One tilts their head, and the voice in the helmet laughs, curious._

 

_“Who is Jie?”_

 

_The knee crawls up from Charge’s knees to his thighs, and Charge doesn’t look like he minds, much. The hands stop trying to pry the claws off of his neck. Probably because they don’t hold them up hard enough to really hurt._

 

_Charge cracks open one-eye, bleary and heaving. He spits._

 

_“They’re no one, asshole.” He manages. “Shut up.”_

 

_No One laughs again, and lets Charge squirm._

 

_“I don’t think I like you calling anyone else’s name right now,” The voice taunts, “Want me to work harder, is it?”)_

 

 _(Charge doesn’t say: “Let me work with you.”_ )   
  
4\.   
  
Chen kisses Ricardo softly, makes up for the bruises that No One left, kisses right under his jawline and down to his collarbone. Flit up everywhere, swallow as much neck he’s got uncovered and unhurt too badly.   
  
Ricardo clutches Wei’s waist with tight hands, edging the bottom of Wei’s shirt up slightly, too focused on the feeling of tongue and teeth and soft hisses and _shh shh shh_ .   
  
He palms the valleys of Wei’s back when he manages to slip under the cotton and Wei whispers in his ear “Say what you want, but keep quiet,” and then pushes open Ricardo’s mouth with this tongue.   
  
He’s not bandaged, but he’s bruised and banged up and his nose had cotton balls stuffed into it  not three minutes ago before he kicked the door open and lead Wei to the wall by pressing their hips together.   
  
“Can I..?” Ricardo huffs out after they break apart for air, and the huff turns into _ah_ when Wei kisses the corner of his mouth at the same time he touches sensitive skin _,_ which turns into _yes yes yes_ .   
  
Wei already knows what he’s going to ask, and since he wants the same thing too, he hums an approval and runs his hands up to Ricardo’s torso, brushes synthetic calluses over the grooves of his chest.   
  
They both want the same things. When Wei’s hands start unbuttoning Ricardo’s jeans as he’s kissing him lazy and open and persistent,  Ortega arches his back and rasps out a “ _Jie-”_   
  
They both want the same things, and Wei makes Ricardo lose sensibility to keep his sanity,  cracks them both open easy and slow and patient, and both of them think of each other and of ghosts as the wall keeps them standing through it all.   
  
5\.   
  
It’s a wonder Ricardo’s standing at all, Chen thinks. It’s a hawkish thought, sure but who cares.   
  
Jie-Sun walks through the door then, and looks relieved to find just the two of them in the kitchen.   


Ortega kisses his cheek hello, and Chen watches Park visibly stuff down his first two violent instincts and instead raise his eyebrows as a greeting back.   
  
He looks like he’s been fighting something. It’s not entirely out of character. The fact that he fought something before he came up to HQ means that he’s not here to fight Ortega, which releases a pressure in Chen that makes it so much easier to breathe.   
  
“What’s wrong?” Ortega asks, heading over to the countertop to lean against. His hair is still ruffled and full of static. Chen pointedly thinks about something else, anything else.

 

He looks like an alkaline hex, and he’ll swallow every ingot of any metal to keep growing.   
  
The context behind _why_ is hidden. Jie-Sun hides himself with how he shoots first and asks later.   
  
Park sniffs at that, and Chen feels better knowing it won’t do either of them any good if Park keeps prying.   
  
Jie-Sun picks up his foot and rests his weight on the left one, takes off the medical mask he always wears and splays out his hands when he knows that someone’s watching him.   
  
Chen doesn’t start, but the hot chill of the image is enough to press a branding in his gut.   
  
They’re bleeding thick, skin peeled and cut, wrapped haphazardly in muddy-pink bandages that Chen knows are too adhesive for that kind of wound.   
  
“What the hell did you do?” Chen asks, low and gentle and firm, and Ortega whips his head from dozing off, already scanning exit points and nearby items he can use to hit. Then, he looks at Park’s outstretched hands and nearly slips off the counter trying to get to the first-aid kit.   
  
There’s a click of Jie-Sun’s jaw as he forcibly cracks it open to talk. Ortega fumbles with the box of first-aid as Chen steps over the kitchen table filled with paperwork to touch the hands.   
  
“Remember how I said that I have enemies?” Jie-Sun says. It’s hoarse and broken. It makes Chen feel newer than he has ever been. “They finally fucking figured out I can talk with my hands. Some shit-ass warning.”   
  
_“What the hell?”_  Ortega asks, and his mods beep in a warning in and of themselves.   
  
“Park,” Chen says. “What do you want me to do?” _About this. About you. About whoever. About who I think this is about. About who I think you are._   
  
Jie-Sun shrugs, and his shoulders slump when he lowers them. He’s caving into himself, and his neck cranes down to look at the floor.   
  
6.

They call people who crane their heads to look at a car crash rubberneckers. He feels the rubber in his neck, alright, when he memorizes the self-made scars that zig zag across Jie-Sun’s nose, his cheeks, right where the tear ducts and the shadows of his cheekbones are.

They’re not ugly, in and of itself. They’re not. Just aggressive in getting their point across.

 

Jie-Sun, back when he talked something other than spit-fire, used to say that it wasn’t the actual piece that made art valuable. Really, some of them were worth thirty bucks. Rather, it was the context that made people spill millions into wine-scented charity drives. Context of who painted it, how it was painted, when and where and why and what.   
  
(When and where and why and what. Every single one of those makes the three of them scatter into their respective fears. Each person holding their own wheel in their own burned-hood car.)

 

It’s the context of the scars that make them horrific. Wei doesn’t know why, or what, or who. But he knows enough to know that if he tried tracing them with his hands, they’ll tear open.   


Ortega wouldn’t be able to handle seeing that again, seeing him cry red instead of salt-water. Context or no, Ortega will still fall for the interpretation he sees.  


 

Jie-Sun used to paint a lot. Figure things out on his own. Wei never saw them, the paintings, but he’d see the paint splotches covering Jie-Sun’s hands.

 

The bruises on his knuckles now are more textured than the the acrylic colors.

 

It’s the context that makes it worse.

 

“You have got,” Ortega hisses, brows furrowed and shoulders hunched. “To stop doing this.”

 

Park doesn’t blink, and doesn’t wince when Ortega swabs over his hands with hydrogen-peroxide soaked gauze. Like recognizes like, Chen guesses. It stings to make sure an infection doesn’t occur.

 

(Ricardo used alcohol to cauterize his wounds, and Wei used sheer will. Someone needs to tell Jie-Sun it’s rude to bleed all over the bathroom sink.)

 

Ortega doesn’t look up from his work, and Chen sighs at the tension of both of their jaws.

 

Both of them aching to say something, both of the things they want to say a little mean.

 

Chen taps the temple of Jie-Sun’s head, barely present. Park blinks to tell him  that he noticed.

 

“Spit it out.” Chen says.

 

Ortega looks up at Chen, confused, then at Park, concerned. His face looks thunderous in things he refuses to let himself say.

 

It’s a fight between those two. Say it with your hands or your punches or your eyes, or don’t say it at all. To them, it’s only fair.

 

Park slumps into himself, chews the inside of his lip.

 

“Spit it out.” Chen tries again. It’s a terrible thing to be a bridge between two opposites. “Please.”

 

When Jie-Sun turns his head to spit out the bright blue pill onto the floor, the cracks from rotating his neck  can be heard and make both Chen and Ortega shiver. Ortega dabs more violently in retaliation.

 

“Really?” He asks. It’s harsh in it’s worry. “Cyanide? _Really_? I thought you were over that!”

 

“I got a fucking sweet-tooth, ass.” Jie-Sun croaks. “Not cyanide. Ethylene glycol.”  
  
Chen makes the sigh that leaks out of him unhearable.   


They’re fighting to save someone dead. They’re trying to save someone whose the ghost of someone they knew.


	5. et tu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> et tu, brutus? (et tu? et tu? was it you? was it?)
> 
> DO I EVEN WANT TO KNOW.

  
No one says this.   
  
“My name is not my name, and the first thing I ever felt was cold head-cheese on a stretcher and how shame made me cry; I understand shame deeply.”   
  
No One says this.   
  
+   
  
“My problem with you is how you think you don’t have choices.”  Wei says, and they’re in the office, and he’s in his chair, and Jie-Sun’s on top of the desk, still mussed from where his sweater was pressed against  Wei’s torso not ten minutes ago. He towers over the Marshal, and he doesn’t like how it feels, to bend your neck down. Makes his spine start to pop, makes the tendons of his back start to bend.   
  
Wei doesn’t look much different. Maybe a little red on the tips of his ears. Maybe a little ruffled. Painter’s touch. Finger-painting. Lovely.   
  
_ Handsome _ .    
  
(That one comes from Wei. Along with other words, all of them a bit too ill-fitting for Jie-Sun to really like.)   
  
It’s because it’s only the two of them he can speak.    
  
“I do have choices.” He says. Quiet and rickety, how a bone heals the wrong way. “I can either let them hurt me, or show the what the fuck I want to do to them.”    
  
It’s because it’s only the two of them, and it’s because Wei hates Ortega a little bit, too, that he can speak.    
  
He touches Wei’s cheek with his palm, and Wei closes his eyes, face calm and scars old. It hurts to talk, and it hurts to keep talking. He’s not apologetic. “I can hurt him,” Jie-Sun croaks: broken stretcher and an ambulance with a flat tire. “Or I can steal shit.”   
  
“Bulgasari,” Wei murmurs, a soft reminder, a tiny edge when he leans his head on Jie-Sun’s plum-bruised hands. “It won’t be enough.”   
  
“There’s never enough fucking money,” Jie-Sun answers.    
  
_ Handsome _ , Wei thinks.  _ He’s going to kill himself _ , Wei thinks.  _ I’m trying my best _ , Wei thinks.    
  
Jie-Sun slumps further, and presses the next words onto Wei’s forehead, right where the shrapnel scars are.    
  
“There’s never enough of you.” He says.   
  
Wei doesn’t reply, and stands up, for the both of them to have better reach. His hands are were warm from the contact underneath Jie-Sun’s layers, and they are probably still warm as he wraps them around Jie-Sun’s waist.    
  
“I didn’t fall for you on purpose, you know.” He hums.  _ Did you make me fall for you on purpose?  _ He thinks.   
  
Jie-Sun stiffens, and cracks the joints of his back and neck, hates how he doesn’t know for sure how and when and why the two of them are in Steel’s office, one kissing the other’s forehead, hand on his cheek.   
  
It’s because they’re like that is why he can speak. It’s exhausting. He wants to sleep, so, so, so. Badly. So, so, so.    
  
“I...forget. That I’m not a human.” He starts. His voice sounds like a mortician’s ash shovel. “It’s because of the fucking...telepathy. Emotions, shit like that. Feel the hell in their brains, start fucking myself up by getting those same feelings, and then I forget that i’m not supposed to fuck myself up. I don’t want to remember. I don’t want,” It starts to crack. He always start cracking.  “I don’t want to fucking remember i’m...this.” 

 

There’s already a tear or two. He doesn’t bother wiping it off, because Wei’s looking at him in that way he did when they disliked each other.   
  
Not...not dislike. Puzzling the two of them out. Prodding and pushing and not liking how long it was taking.   
  
Then, Wei looks forty-two again, instead of thirty-one, and he’s got that cotton look to his eye, like he’s airing out the windows and letting Jie-Sun crawl inside. Like that quiet breeze that lifts the curtains up is running through the neutrality of his expression.    
  
He tilts his head low (low, now, because he’s standing, and Jie-Sun’s using his other hand to keep himself from toppling from the desk,) and they share the same breaths of air for a second.    
  
“Come here,” Wei whispers, small enough for Jie-Sun to feel it skitter on his mouth.    
  
Jie-Sun doesn’t know what Wei’s thinking. He’s too tired to focus on that right now. There’s some  salt-water dripping off of Jie-Sun’s chin.    
  
“Why?” He asks, and it’s waking him up, how they both shiver.    
  
“Because you’re selfish.” He answers.    
  
Jie-Sun doesn’t respond. He looks away from Wei’s eyes, down to his mouth, and up again. Wei isn’t smiling.    
  
“Can I?” Wei asks.    
  
Jie-Sun wants him to taste the tears. In more ways than one. In more ways than one, in more ways than one, God, there’s a story about this somewhere.    
  
“Yeah,”   
  
The kiss is light, barely there.    
  
Jie-Sun’s eyes are closed, but he still hears the “See? That was your choice. You can make choices.”   
  


+

 

No one says this.    
  
“THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT THIS IS ALL [MY] FAULT THIS IS ALL [MY] FAULT”   
  
Jie-Sun wants to say this. Aching in his wants. 

 

+   
  
“Talk to him, Jie-Sun.”    
  
I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. _   
_ __   
DO I EVEN WANT TO KNOW.

 

“....Alright. Next time. When he asks.”  
  
DO I EVEN CARE.  
  
DOES HE EVEN CARE.  
  
+  
  
  
Ortega asks when the two of them are at the beach, where his hands are crusted with the sand he keeps prodding at. Park’s back to being Park. Tolerable enough for Ortega to ignore how vile he gets, how waspish and how sickly-green.   
  
It’s the usual. How are you.   
  
Park throws a rock into the lapping ocean, and his cane is forgotten  a few feet away from where he’s sitting, stiff as drift-board but the same color of an eel, dark against the granular grey of the sand, the milky deep grey of the sea foam, the soggy brown grey of the sky.   
  
He signs, after he throws a few more, and Ortega’s used enough to read ASL to catch the words, thank God.   
  
“I need to ask you something,” Park signs, and Ortega’s mind supplies the rest of the sentence instead of the actual “ASK-YOU?”  
  
“Anything,” Ortega breezes, imprinting the back of Park’s legs into his memories, store it for later, replay the picture enough to fade it out into a tattoo, because he still hates photos, and he’s here, now.   
  
Here’s a photo where he’s staring out into the ocean. Here’s another when he purses his lips, and that means he’s probably gritting his teeth, oh, that won’t do, maybe Ortega can make him loose enough to let go of the tension, here’s a photo where he’s taking a deep breath, and.  
  
Oh.  
  
They’re going to fight.   
  
Oh, boy.  
  
“You know why I don’t talk, right?” Park asks, twisting his torso and half-hopping to properly let Ortega translate.   
  
Oh, it’s this kind of fight.   
  
Park’s already looking like he’s ready to lose. Still, his fists continue to bleed.   
  
“I do.” Ortega answers.   
  
“Tell me.”   
  
In three days, Ortega will be Charge, and no one will scream “ _I AM A MONUMENT TO ALL YOUR SINS AND YOU LIKE ME LIKE THAT_ ” in that God-awful voice of theirs, and they’ll speak the truth and Ortega will hate how much they’re right with all the constant talking they do, and he’ll hate it so much that he’ll almost catch them.   
  
No one will say that.  
  
No One will never miss an opportunity to say that.  
  
Both No One and Jie-Sun Park kiss their fists before they hit his face so hard he sees stars.   
  
Jie-Sun doesn’t give a warning, first.   
  
Ricardo wants to run his hands up from Jie-Sun’s spine and down again. He wants, and wants, and wants. So, so, so. Badly. So, so, so.  
  
“Someone cut off your tongue,” He says, loud and eye-gouged. “ Someone cut out your tongue.”   
  
Park’s silent. He’s watching the ocean again. A seagull cries. The waves cry.   
  
He doesn’t even blink.  
  
“Do you know why?” Park asks. He’s crying.   
  
Ortega’s own mouth goes dry, hard to swallow. His voice doesn’t crack. He’s composed. He’s so, so, so composed.   
  
“I don’t.” He answers. His voice does not crack.  
  
( “Even now, my eyes rot from water-stains and it’s all because I’m crying for an audience,”  
  
No one says this.  
  
No one will say this.   
  
Jie-Sun probably wants to say something.)  
  
Park looks at him, blinking angrily.   
  
Then, he says, and he _says_ this, he opens his mouth and his voice comes out and Ortega hasn’t heard it in seven fucking years, and it sounds so terrible, but he _says this._ _  
_ _  
_“Are you lying?” He asks, and he asks, and he asks.  
  
Ortega lets himself be Ricardo, and Park melts into Jie-Sun, who weeps.  
  
“I’m not, I swear.” Ricardo rashes out, and he’s choking up, and he’s stumbling up to touch him, just to touch him, just a little, this is real, right? It’s real.   
  
He touches the tip of Jie-Sun’s elbow, and Jie-Sun crumbles, and suddenly his head’s on Ricardo’s shoulder, soaking Ricardo’s shirt, just like he did before, just like how he never did when he was dead.   
  
“Holy shit,” Jie-Sun chokes out. “Holy _shit_. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t you.”   
  
Ricardo freezes, and oh.   
  
Oh.   
  
_What?_  
  
“ __What?”  
  
Jie-Sun doesn’t look up, and his words are as muffled as his tears, and Ricardo hates how he’s terrified of pulling him closer.   
  
“I thought,” Jie-Sun says. “I thought you did it.”  
  
+  
  
This is all your fault.  
  
No one said this, with the exception of him.  
  



	6. they both have a thing for hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> they’re both goal oriented and both biased

Los Diablos doesn’t feel real, and he’s holding your hand.

 

It’s warm, and there’s a small tremor in the middle of his palm, heart-beat tiny and fizzling the the sting of an electric-fence. His thumb presses circles into the tender bruise on your knuckles, and you want to break his fingers. 

 

You’re in his apartment, and you’re resting your leg on the couch in his living room, and you havent spoken this much to him in the entirety of these nine months than as of right now. 

 

Nothing feels real. This is another one of their moving pictures. Right? You don’t remember having to be in a simulation where his hand doesn’t turn into a bear-trap and drag you into a cell.

 

(Right here. You turned a corner while laughing into the corner of his mouth and then he bit you so hard he filled your mouth with copper and you couldn’t scream and you can’t scream-

 

No. Right there. You just finished pushing out a threat and he tries cleaning up a bullet-graze on your head and it’s the only way so he shoves a knife down your throat and suddenly nothing hurts as much as choking on- 

 

No. Further down. You started talking too much and you were about to tell him the bad bad bad bad and so to shut you up he held your cheek and he shut you up and now you’re fully shut up-

 

No.

 

 _“What?”_ _)_

 

That didn’t happen. It’s not happening now. Did it happen? What’s happening. Los diablos doesn’t feel real. Your skins too tight on your face, and you can taste tooth-dust on the inside of your molars. Snap the cauckled cracks of your spine and neck, hear the pop pop crack of your shoulders as you tilt your head this way and that. 

 

The warmth of his hand as the two of you sit in this new couch he bought because the old one got blown up feels the same your ankle does. 

 

Both of them make you crippled; both of them make you want to crawl.

 

_ I thought you did it. _

 

He is. Doing it. He’s still doing it but he never did it. He’s doing it right now and he never did it in his life. (What the hell did he do)

 

He doesn’t look at you. His hands aren’t shaking just from the mods, it seems. Not when his gaze keeps flickering away, his eyebrows furrowed and with all the ozone cloaking him and soaking him full with illegibility. You can and never will be able to read him. Yet, you never understood someone so quickly before.

 

_ It wasn’t you. _

 

_ What? _

 

It hurts. To pretend like you’re still not trying to follow their orders; it hurts.

  
  


(There’s a story, somewhere. Someone comes in and fucks up someone’s else’s life. It always results in open wounds. He has never-. Come on. What the hell do you steal to get a branding like this.)

 

“I want to say something,” Ortega tries, and it’s already strained. He still doesn’t look at you, and the sun is still setting, and he’s still shaking, and he’s still a tangle of electric wires open and without protection. “But, you wouldn’t like it.” 

 

He doesn’t let go of your hand, so you force yourself to open your mouth and let you words gag you like chloroform and chlorine.

 

“I could have used a distraction.” You croak.

 

His shoulders bunch, and then they slump. He looks at you.

 

“I know.”

 

This isn’t a day for distractions. He’s going to do something stupid and you’re going to do something even worse. A constant show of idiocy and it will always result in scraped knees and your hands around his neck because he keeps holding your hand and you don’t want him to let go but if he doesn’t you are going to  _ break his fucking fingers.  _

  
  


( _ It wasn’t you. _

 

_ What?)  _

  
  


Ortega’s looking at you. All of the fight in you from before dies and crumples to the floor. There’s nothing but the goosebumps of your skin left, the clogging of your throat like a sink. 

 

There’s nothing but the way he doesn’t smile, how his expression is one that scares you.

 

“I never got to tell you,” 

 

_ I never got to tell you anything.  _ You want to say. But you don’t.

 

He untangles his hand from yours and reaches out to touch you, and then pulls back. Brown are his eyes. Religious is his voice. 

 

(Sometimes he’d lay in his bed and try to picture your face. Sometimes it would almost work.)

 

(Maybe you’re not who you say you are, but at least he can make you smile, at least he can try to make you touch him, at least there’s the possibility that you will.)

 

Oh, someone comes into someone else’s life and it always leads the both of them bleeding.

 

“Tell me what?” 

 

You give him permission to say.

 

“That I loved you.” He says. 

 

His religion is regret. That’s what you wanted, right?

 

Right?

 

That’s what you wanted. 

 

Right? 

 

“Oh, no.” You manage to crack out. “Ortega,  _ shit _ , don’t.” Your eyes sting.

 

“No, I’m going to.” He says, and he doesn’t stop looking you in the face, doesn’t move away from you. His mouth is grim, and his eyes are soft and ripe and full and  _ asking _ and already knowing. “I wasted so much time, then. And I never told you.”

 

“Don’t.” You already hear the stuffiness of trying to talk through tears. And . This wasn’t what you wanted. This is. No. No no no you wanted exactly this. ( _ What do you want? I want to make you all regret this.)  _ Oh, everything is a mess and now you’re both bleeding in salt. 

 

“I loved you,” He says again, and this time he reaches out to brush a tear away and you don’t flinch, so he keeps doing it. “And I love you now.”

 

“Fuck you.” You try as a last ditch effort before he cradles your cheek with his calloused and battle-rough hands. “Fuck you, fuck you.”

 

“It’s good to hear you talk again,” He answers, and watches his thumb brush against your cheekbone. “I missed it. I missed you.”

 

“Fuck off.” You hear you constonants turn to rolls, and you know you’re losing. Already you’re leaning into his palm, as if it was muscle memory. 

 

If you cannot trust your memories of him, then at least you can trust this. 

 

He’s not winning,either.

 

“Jie-Sun,” Ortega says. He grins, and stares at you. “I really wouldn’t mind kissing you right now.”

 

How sore of a loser are you? How sore indeed. 

 

“If you make me regret this, I’ll fucking kill you,” you say, and you pull in his head to kiss him, and you close your eyes. 

 

His lips are warm like his hands are, soft like his hands aren’t. You tilt this way and that after a minute, trying to find a way to make sure your noses don’t bump like they used to, and he is pliant, malleable and willing.

 

He kisses back, then, when he drops his hold on your cheek to snake his hands around your waist and oh, you’re on his lap (okay, that takes a little fuss, shit dude shit ow ow ow), legs draping off the side of the couch and he’s kissing back. His breaths skitter on your upper lip and his mustache tickles, a bit, and his beard scratches, too which makes you huff in amusement and when you do he licks the bottom of your lip. 

 

Asking. 

 

You let him. 

 

And suddenly it isn’t warm anymore, it’s too hot and his arms are right around the back of your hips and the way you open your mouth makes a sound, and he kisses you and you kiss him and his mouth tastes a bit like nothing. Like he’s been praying. Like he’s been begging you to let yourself be worshipped. 

 

———

 

“Bedroom,” You croak, and he holds you all the time it takes to lock the doors and turn off the lights and listen to him laugh and show himself off for you, lets you touch and touch and touch him. 

 

(The shape of his idolatry, you mouth at the zipper of his jeans, press your palms against his thighs and his the way his voice sounds is of one who is blessed.)

 

It shows how bad you are at losing graciously. This is why you’re not getting a happy ending. 

 

———

Bedroom. 

 

He doesn’t let go of your hand, no matter how hard you squeeze. Instead, he crushes yours back in understanding.

 

“I love you,” He whispers; to mouth.

 

“I love you,” He whispers; to neck.

 

“I love you,” He whispers; to wrist.

 

“God, I love you,” He whispers, and his voice cracks, and his kisses your heartbeat, swallows it whole.

 

“I love you I love you I love you,” He breaks, and it’s in rythmn to the way the two of you hold each other tight enough to draw blood, writhing with the heady weight of him, and he gasps into the crook of your shoulder, and you know if you were to taste his cheeks they’d be salted and wet. 

He’s so close, and he kisses your jawline and your jugular and your forehead, and he’s so close.

 

(Shh. ShhAh-. G. 

 

              G _o_ _d._  Yesyesyes _yes yes yesseyesyesy._

 

PleasecanIcanIdo you think Shut Up,  _ Fuck. Ffffu  _ MNFU _ ck. _

 

__ LoveyouIloveyou _ ahngh _ -

 

  1. D oNT _stop_. 



therehtethererighttherelooksogoodlooksoperfectyouresoperfectyouredoingsowellsosogooddontstopkeepgoingpleaseyesGODyes

 

          J _ ie,- _ jie?rica _ rdoriCahhh _

_ Ricardo,ric _

_ JieSun,j-) _

 

You’re bad at losing. Your tongue doesn’t rebel against his as you thought it would. You’re good at being wrong. 

 

He wants you to stay.

 

You can’t run away. After all, he’s already shoved a pillow under your ankle and gave you some pain meds, which work. Kind of. Not really. Enough to not have to think about it all the time. Not enough to leave. 

———

 

You stay. He traces the scars on your thighs, the tally mark ones. Kisses where he touched despite it being dark enough for the night to turn to day. 

 

You’ll never be free of him at this rate.

 

________

 

It’s  still dark, so you can’t see that it’s him whose kissing the crook of your collarbone like that, it’s him whose pressing heady breaths as he talks. Each exhale almost in time with the slow way he touches your hips, running up and down the left side of you.

 

“I have an idea,” He murmurs, still sex-husked. “You can’t read my mind.”

 

“Mm.”

 

“So you know that you can’t mess with what I remember, and neither can anyone else.”

 

“Where are you,  _ ah. _ ” He brushes the inside of your thigh again. He seems to know that you like it there. “Going with this?”

 

“Tell me something you remember about me. I’ll tell you what really happened.”

 

It’s not a bad thought. You tug him up by his hair to pull him up and his body slides up yours and he kisses you open-mouthed and still tasting of you and him and the two of you in the shape of one.

 

It’s kind of gross, actually. But it’s nice. He’s good at it, you think. 

 

“They’re not nice.” You say as he starts kissing the shape of your cheekbone. Edging the scars that Heartbreak gave you. The ones you gave yourself. Scratched off your face with your nails because you thought that would get rid of it.

 

Didn’t get rid of it. Just made it more pronounced.

 

“That’s fine.” He says. “We weren’t particularly nice to each other before.”

 

“Mm.”

 

Because it’s so dark, because it’s Ortega, because it’s this and that and all little tiny things clicking into place, you feel like you did when you were eighteen. When you had a penchant for tattle-taling. When you liked running your mouth.

 

“When it got too late for me to leave,” you start. “And I still couldn’t talk, we’d sit on your couch and I’d start trying to tell you about something, and you’d take my hands and hold them so I’d shut up.”

 

He doesn’t feel fazed, but the roils of muscle on his chest tense, some. You think he forces them to loosen.

 

“If you haven’t noticed, I’m a big fan of your hands, even back then.” Ortega says. You can  _ feel _ the grin on your shoulder. “ You’d start getting so invested in what you were saying that I’d have a hard time translating, ai? And then you’d keep hitting my face by accident. “

 

“Jesus Christ.”

 

“Had to save my complexion  _ somehow _ so I killed two birds with one stone and started doing this,”

 

There’s rustling of bedsheets, and he plucks your left hand out and you can feel the feather-light pressure of a kiss inside your wrist. One, two, on the palm, three, on your fingers, six, seven, eight.

 

“Like that.” he murmurs into the space between your ring finger and your pinkie. 

 

You try to rack your brain for that. All that comes up is dream-film and bloodshotedness. All that comes up is….feels wrong.

 

“You’re an idiot. That’s so fucking stupid.”

 

“Mierda, you just noticed? Tell me something else. Keep talking.”

 

“Hm. That, ah shit. That restaurant, where the pick-up lines thing started.”

 

“The…? Oh! Oh my God, the pick-up lines. Not my best method, but you laughed so hard every time I used a new one.”

 

“I...I never laughed. Did I?”

 

“....You did.”

 

He sighs, and nestles in closer. His voice is a million miles away, a decade ago. You can bet he’s face looks like someone whose stumbled upon a fossil.

 

“You laughed so much, you always did.” He tells you.

 

You can’t remember that. 

 

You don’t feel like laughing right now, either.

 

It comes to you that you might love him too, if this Ricardo isn’t the one that you know.

 

Because the scars on all of you doesn’t match the way he makes you hurt. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jie, bursting into Chen’s apartment: YOU WERE RIGHT. you were right he IS a good kisser
> 
> Chen knowing Exactly what went down: HAH. stupid.


	7. Pearl Necklace Poker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jie-Sun actually prefers gold, rather than pearls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ortega sucks jies DICK in glorious detail because it took me three days to stop laughing while writing this

> Jie-Sun is wearing pearls today. Not just on his earlobes, but a rope of them is wrapped around his throat haphazardly; looped twice and then finally resting on his collarbone. It’s not particularly unusual when he wears something other than earrings, only uncommon. It wouldn’t have been much of note.

 

However, he’s also wearing a thin turtleneck that clings to the grooves of his torso and arms, and it hints enough to the body underneath that Ricardo keeps imagining the pearls being worn with no shirt at all. Well. Not only shirt. Ricardo hasn’t been in a ‘ _do things half-way’_ mood as of late.

 

He’s touching the cork board pinned with fraying string and folded and refolded papers, thumbing a photograph of someone whose been presumed to work for Hollow Ground with his fingers as if he’s reading braille. As far as Ricardo can tell, it’s just general curiosity, and it leaves Ricardo with a plain, uninterrupted view of his profile. The Ranger can cross his legs under his desk, ignore the papers demanding his signature and money, and watch Jie-Sun’s chest rise and fall, his legs tapping away the restlessness.   
  
Jie-Sun doesn’t look away as he furrows his eyebrows at a memo with terrible handwriting and says: “Doesn’t take a mind-reader to tell that you’re not reading those papers.”   
  
There it is - as rocky and as rough as brittle bone. The constant swears don’t sweeten the misuse of his voice, but it’s enough of a relief to even hear it in general.   
  
Besides, it’s only been three days since Jie-Sun first said _“I thought it was you_ ” and then some. Ricardo should be allowed to still feel like he’s been given permission to indulge in something he’s been hiding under his mattress for years now.   
  
Ricardo thinks about mattresses. Thinks about how they hold well. Thinks about how they creak, sometimes, or is that the bed-frame? Ah well, details.   
  
Jie-Sun flicks a glance, probably meant to be cursory, and when he sees Ricardo catch the look and tilt his face so his eyelashes hood his eyes, he doesn’t look away.   
  
“Does it take mind-reading to know that I’ve been thinking about you all day?” Ricardo says, and crosses his legs again. It’s getting uncomfortable to sit, sort of.  “Because I have. Been thinking about you, that is.”   
  
To Ricardo’s surprise, Jie-Sun snorts, amused. He lets go of the cork board to roll the pearls on his throat between his fingers, as if in after-thought, or to highlight the fact there’s a glint in his eyes and the shirt stretches and strains against his biceps.   
  
It’s not a lie. Ricardo has been thinking about him all day. In fact, he’s been thinking about him for three days, ever since that night. It’s becoming a staple of his morning, and his afternoon, and his night. Especially the nights.   
  
There have been no patterns to what exactly he has been thinking, save for two things: Jie-Sun, and the sounds Ricardo knows Jie-Sun can make, the ones that can be enticed out. It might become a problem, or it might not, if the latter can play his cards right. Reading Jie-Sun is like playing poker, but the house is _definitely_ cheating.

  
Ricardo can fight against a little cheating. In fact, he pulls himself up from his seat, forearms bare and brushing away the papers, and hips poised in such a way, his chin jutted up in another way, his grin lopsided in the way Ricardo knows Jie-Sun likes. Or, at least, used to like. He walks around the desk, his hands dragging across the grain of the wood, his posture accentuating this and that, putting on a show that he knows Jie-Sun’s watched and enjoyed before.   
  
‘ _Eyes on me_ ,’ He tries pinging. ‘ _Your eyes on me_ .’   
  
Jie-Sun very, very slowly straightens to his full height and drops his hand from his pearls to steady himself on the board as Ricardo steps over to him, the amusement never leaving his face, one eyebrow raised as if to question Ricardo’s actions, his other hand resting on his hip. His own returning grin is small: only a little toothy, only a bit of dimple, only a little knowing. It doesn’t hide the scars, but it doesn’t bring attention to them, either.   
  
“Fucker,” Jie-Sun mutters, right when Ricardo stands close enough to wrap one arm around the curve of Jie-Sun’s waist, and the second hand comes up to fiddle with the pearls. “The hell are you doing?” There’s still the undertones of distrust and distaste, but it’s getting faint. Good.  When Ricardo tilts his head up to kiss the corner of Jie-Sun’s mouth, and Jie-Sun snorts again, and turns his head to meet him full on, that’s even better.   
  
Ricardo rolls the pearl necklace, and dips his hands under Jie-Sun’s belt, just a tiny bit.   
  
“I’m still not allowed to look,” He murmurs as soon as he breaks apart from the kiss to breathe the same air as Jie-Sun. He’s already riled up, already flushed, and Jie-Sun doesn’t look to be far behind, red ears and all.   
  
“No,” Jie-Sun replies, and the intensity comes from the distrust. Ortega ignores it, and teeths on his jawline to lower it to a simmer.   
  
“I know,” Ortega says into Jie-Sun’s ear, before biting his left earlobe lightly, pearl stud and all. Jie-Sun shivers, and reaches out to Ricardo’s own waist to steady himself, and breathes a bit heavier. Good. “But I keep thinking about you in nothing but these.” He says, and kisses the shell of his ear in emphasis. Trails his mouth down to his neck, and finds a spot, and sucks. Jie-Sun gasps, and clutches the fabric of Ricardo’s shirt in response. Ricardo quickly finds that the shirt would be better gone.   
  
His hips are dangerously close to Jie-Sun’s. He uses that slight to pull himself even closer, till denim meets belt, till thigh meets the space between.   
  
“Just you,” Ortega whispers, into the bruise that’s definitely going to be there tomorrow, (Damn him for wearing turtlenecks, he doesn’t have enough _access_ ) and ruts into the shudder that Jie-Sun gives out. “Just pearls. On the- on my desk.”   
  
“ _Hah_ ,” Jie-Sun replies, winded already, hissing in air through his teeth when Ortega lets go  of the necklace to run both his hands under Jie-Sun’s shirt, roaming as much as he can, tracing the bumps of scars and the valleys of muscle and abdomen. Flicks stiff nipples. “Wishfu _-fuck_ . _Wishful thinking_ .”   
  
Ricardo comes up from making red, bite-marked welts at the unexposed skin of Jie-Sun’s neck to kiss him hard and open, deep enough to quiet any sounds from either of them, and forces himself to stop jerking against Jie-Sun’s thighs more than a couple of times.   
  
Ricardo ignores the pill nestled between cheek and molars, tries not to think about it as he’s tasting peppermint and, well, nothing. The inside of his mouth isn’t sweet, which is good. That’s good. That means Jie-Sun hasn’t been indulging in his sweet tooth.   
  
Ortega breaks off, drooling a bit, and Jie-Sun’s heaving heavy breaths, his eyes just as flushed as darkly as his face, his lips slick and red. He looks dazed, and the amusement is gone.   
  
“Alright-” Ortega bites Jie-Sun’s bottom lip, drags it as he pulls away again, “You,” He drawls, “I-,” His shirt gets wrinkled from under Jie-Sun’s hands, and his pants feel too constricting. He licks into open mouth before keening a: “God, just-”

 

He kisses Jie-Sun again, finds him pliant, and thinks about all the ways he’s dreamed up kissing him, how and where and again and again, and moans.

 

“Mmph,” Jie-Sun replies, and the rumble comes from the back of his throat. He touches Ricardo’s jaw, pulls him off with a _pop_. He pants, three, four times before opening his eyes and staring straight at Ricardo. Unreadable. Glinting. Wanting? Here’s to hoping.

 

“Your beard is scratchy,” He rasps. “And my leg is fucking killing me,” 

 

“ _Mierda,”_ Ricardo says, immediately tilting the taller man toward him so as Jie-Sun doesn’t have to stand without support, “Why didn't you-“

 

“When would I? While you were copping a feel?”

 

There it is- the sardonic amusement, but he lets Ricardo hold him like a rag-doll, let’s him get carried and led gently to the chair Ricardo stuffed in front of his desk for specifically this reason with only a little bit of bitching, lets himself be put down tenderly, let’s Ricardo touch and touch and brush his hands a little more than necessary over his shirt.

 

“Yes, idiot,” Ortega miffs, watching Jie-Sun’s expression for any signs of hurt. “Exactly as I was trying to ‘cop a feel’.”

 

“Shut up,” Jie-Sun says, his face is still pink. “Stop talking.”

 

“Double-negative, love.”

 

He sniffs at that, and looks over to where Ricardo’s hands rest on his knee. “You’re not subtle,” He says, hands grabbing at Ricardo’s own. “I’m fine.”   
  
“Hmm,” Jie-Sun fiddles with Ricardo’s palm, more specifically with his mods, as Ortega says this. He’s not. It’s not like he’s looking at a fist which is, oh _boy,_ which is a relief. Usually as soon as Ortega’s hands are in sight he tenses, but now it’s as if he’s interested. A little too interested. Ricardo lets his hand be held, puffs out laughter whenever Jie-Sun toys with it and pretends like this isn’t something he’s been hoping for.   
  
Then, he kneels.

 

Chin right between Jie-Sun’s knees, looking up with a cat’s smile as the other traces old scars on Ricardo’s knuckle.   
  
“You look and I’ll rip your dick off,” Jie-Sun mutters, and Ricardo squeezes Jie-Sun’s hand, uses his second one to brush against Jie-Sun’s legs.

  
“You’re great at pillow talk, you know,” Ortega purrs, pressing lightly against inner thighs, the warmth of Jie-Sun nearly radiating even with so many layers on. Messes with the zipper by unzipping a little, then pulling it up again. Jie-Sun’s hold on Ricardo’s hand tightens, and his breath hitches.   
  
Demin doesn’t do much for feeling, that’s for sure, but Jie-Sun tenses nonetheless, nervous and doubtful. He doesn’t answer, and watches as Ricardo tries to unbuckle his belt, albeit with one hand. Ortega’s own hard-on sits imprsoned and ignored, for now. The grasp on Ricardo’s right hand almost shakes, and a quick look up shows that Jie-Sun’s face is tight, worried, blushing.   
  
The blushing is good, very good. The worry? Not so much.   
  
“Easy,” Ortega murmurs loud enough to be heard as he’s pulling the jean zipper down fully, “Not going to hurt you.”

  
That’s one of the problems. Jie-Sun always assumes that Ortega’s default is to do something to hurt him. It’s, needless to say, one of the main reasons why Jie-Sun’s holding his hand like a life-line, face desperately trying to say something that Ricardo isn’t equipped to translate just yet. He’s got too many new expressions. Or. No, they’re not new. They’ve just never been directed at him.   
  
“Okay,” Jie-Sun answers.   
  
It makes Ricardo want to ask ‘ _do you trust me?_ ’. That’s stupid. He already knows the answer. He’s been trying to change it. It might be working.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BUT Y'ALL AIN'T GONNA READ THAT PART. NO DICKS ON MY LOBBY

**Author's Note:**

> haha


End file.
